Since the statistical analysis of Ethernet local-area network (LAN) traces in Leland et al. [20], there has been signi®cant progress in developing appropriate mathematical and statistical techniques that provide a physical-based, networking-related understanding of the observed fractal-like or self-similar scaling behavior of measured data traf®c over time scales ranging from hundreds of milliseconds to seconds and beyond. These techniques explain, describe, and validate the reported large-time